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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

8.

Quid ergo iam moveat sancti evangelii sectatorem, quod sine concubitu Ioseph Christus natus ex virgine filius tamen David appellatur, cum generationum seriem non usque ad Mariam, sed usque ad Ioseph Matthaeus evangelista perducat? p. 713,7 Primo quia mariti eius fuerat propter virilem sexum potius honoranda persona; neque enim quia concubitu non permixtus ideo non maritus, cum ipse Matthaeus narret ab angelo Mariam coniugem ipsius appellatam, qui narrat, quod non ipsius concubitu, sed de spiritu sancto conceperat. Quodsi non Matthaeus apostolus ista vera, sed aliquis alius sub eius nomine, sicut Manichaei putant, ea falsa conscriberet, itane sibi etiam ipse in rebus apertissimis et tam de proximo contextis contraria loqueretur, ut quem diceret David filium de Maria virgine sine cuiusquam viri concubitu natum, eiusdem parentes gradatim enumerans usque ad eum sine aliqua ratione perduceret, quem non commixtum Mariae ipse dixisset? p. 713,18 Si enim alius enumeraret progeneratores Christi a David usque ad Ioseph dicens eum filium David, et alius eum sine ullius viri concubitu ex virgine Maria natum diceret nec eum filium David appellaret, nec sic continuo putare deberemus eos sibi haec contraria locutos fuisse, ut vel ambo vel unus eorum falsitatis convinceretur. Cogitare enim deberemus fieri potuisse, ut ambo vera dicerent, ut et Ioseph maritus Mariae diceretur habens eam coniugem continenter non concubitu, sed affectu, non commixtione corporum, sed copulatione, quod est carius, animorum, et ideo non debuisse virum virginis matris Christi separari a serie parentum Christi, et ipsam Mariam aliquam de stirpe David venam sanguinis ducere, ut caro Christi etiam ex virgine procreata sine David semine esse non posset. 714,3 Cum vero unus idemque narrator utrumque dicat, utrumque commendet, et virum Mariae Ioseph et Christi virginem matrem et Christum ex semine David et Ioseph in serie progeneratorum Christi ex David: quid restat, ut credat, qui mavult divino evangelio quam haereticorum fabulis credere, nisi et Mariam non fuisse extraneam a cognatione David et eam Ioseph coniugem non frustra appellatam propter ordinem sexus et animorum confoederationem, quamvis ei non fuerit carne commixtus, et Ioseph potius propter dignitatem virilem ab ordine generationum illarum non fuisse separandum, ne hoc ipso videretur ab illa femina separatus, cui eum coniungebat mentis affectus, et ne homines fideles Christi id, quod sibi coniuges carne miscentur, tam magnum in coniugio deputarent, ut sine hoc coniuges esse non crederent, sed potius dicerent (discerent ?) fidelia coniugia multo familiarius se adhaerere membris Christi, quanto potuissent imitari parentes Christi? p. 714,19

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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

8.

This assailant of the holy Gospel need find no difficulty in the fact that Christ is called the Son of David, though He was born of a virgin, and though Joseph was not His real father; while the genealogy is brought down by the evangelist Matthew, not to Mary, but to Joseph. First of all, the husband, as the man, is the more honorable; and Joseph was Mary's husband, though she did not live with him, for Matthew himself mentions that she was called Joseph's wife by the angel; as it is also from Matthew that we learn that Mary conceived not by Joseph, but by the Holy Spirit. But if this, instead of being a true narrative written by Matthew the apostle, was a false narrative written by some one else under his name, is it likely that he would have contradicted himself in such an apparent manner, and in passages so immediately connected, as to speak of the Son of David as born of Mary without conjugal intercourse, and then, in giving His genealogy, to bring it down to the very man with whom the Virgin is expressly said not to have had intercourse, unless he had some reason for doing so? Even supposing there were two writers, one calling Christ the Son of David, and giving an account of Christ's progenitors from David down to Joseph; while the other does not call Christ the Son of David, and says that He was born of the Virgin Mary without intercourse with any man; those statements are not irreconcilable, so as to prove that one or both writers must be false. It will appear on reflection that both accounts might be true; for Joseph might be called the husband of Mary, though she was his wife only in affection, and in the intercourse of the mind, which is more intimate than that of the body. In this way it might be proper that the husband of the virgin-mother of Christ should have a place in the list of Christ's ancestors. It might also be the case that some of David's blood flowed in Mary herself, so that the flesh of Christ, although produced from a virgin, still owed its origin to David's seed. But as, in fact, both statements are made by one and the same writer, who informs us both that Joseph was the husband of Mary and that the mother of Christ was a virgin, and that Christ was of the seed of David, and that Joseph is in the list of Christ's progenitors in the line of David, those who prefer the authority of the sacred Gospel to that of heretical fiction must conclude that Mary was not unconnected with the family of David, and that she was properly called the wife of Joseph, because being a woman she was in spiritual alliance with him, though there was no bodily connection. Joseph, too, it is plain, could not be omitted in the genealogy; for, from the superiority of his sex, such an omission would be equivalent to a denial of his relation to the woman with whom he was inwardly united; and believers in Christ are taught not to think carnal connection the chief thing in marriage, as if without this they could not be man and wife, but to imitate in Christian wedlock as closely as possible the parents of Christ, that so they may have the more intimate union with the members of Christ.